1986.............what a year! Once again I seriously underestimated the number of albums I would need to get my head around. I rated at least 100 albums properly and probably checked out and discarded another 50-60.
I consider myself fortunate that 1986 (age 12) was the year that my music collection first grew wings. Up to then I had listened exclusively to KISS (mostly) and Van Halen , along with some bits and pieces of my father's collection (Dire Straits, Doobies etc...) By the end of 1986 my collection included stuff from Ozzy, Malmsteen, Dokken, Jovi, Europe, Def leppard and so on.
I mentioned in my Top 50 that there was a particular VHS tape that I literally played to death and on it we had the group of four songs from Van Halen's debut recorded "live" at The Whiskey with DLR in his red silk get up. After that on the tape was an Ozzy video that really took my love for the guitar to the next level. Jake
Dat solo got played over and over and over in 1986............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f80hOOcUh54#t=161Anyway..........the Top 10.
I'm pretty certain that this is the only year so far where every album in my Top 10 has a 90%+ rating......in fact a few 90% ratings missed the cut , which makes them very unlucky losers. As far as the rankings go , you could pretty much rearrange the top eight any way you like and I'd find it hard to argue. I have ranked using a combination of my % rating (there are many ties) along with the influence they had on me at the time. One little anomaly is that I ranked The Final Countdown much higher than Slippery When Wet in my Top 50 and have reversed them here. At the time I did my top 50 I felt that The Final Countdown was the more influential album (just) and it was also combined in that listing with Norum's Face The Truth ,which adds a lot of weight. In the end I decided that after my recent listening that SWW has aged a lot better than TFC and thus received a higher % score. We're really splitting hairs here though with the rankings.
I'm sure my number one will get plenty of
.........and maybe a couple of
TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 19861.Ozzy Osbourne : The Ultimate Sin (TIE)
1. Van Halen :5150 (TIE)
3. Bon Jovi :Slippery When Wet
4. Europe:The Final Countdown
5. Queensryche: Rage for Order
6 Metallica :Master of Puppets
7 Tesla: Mechanical Resonance
8. David Lee Roth:Eat Em and Smile
9. Waysted :Save Your Prayers
10. Cinderella: Night SongsMissed by a bee's dick :
Yngwie Malmsteen: Trilogy
Keel: The Final Frontier
Great White: Shot In The Dark
Ratt: Dancing Undercover
Made the squad but not the team
TT Quick :Metal of Honor
Triumph :Sport of Kings
Helloise :Polarity
Black n Blue :Nasty Nasty
Dio : Intermission (Expanded boot)
Black Sabbath :Seventh Star
Fate : A Matter of Attitude
Stryper :To Hell With The Devil
Fifth Angel :Fifth Angel
Hawk: Hawk
Rough Cutt :…..Wants You
Zebra: 3.V
Warlock :True As Steel
Killer Dwarfs :Stand tall
Kuni :Masque
King Kobra :Thrill of a Lifetime
Judas Priest :Turbo
Sword :Metalized
Alice Cooper :Constrictor
Vinnie Vincent Invasion :s/t
Iron Maiden :Somewhere In Time
Tarot : Spell of Iron
Giuffria :Silk and Steel
Quiet Riot :III
M.A.R.S: Project Driver
Q5: When The Mirror Cracks
Vinnie Moore :Mind's Eye
Brighton Rock : Young Wild and Free
Metal Church: The Dark
Racer X :Street Lethal
Gary Moore: We Want Moore
Rhett Forrester : Gone With The Wind
Jack Starr's Burning Starr :No Turning Back
Tyran Pace :Watching You
Tysondog : Crimes of Insanity
Obsession : Scarred For Life
As before I used an 80% cut off for the HMs. Many of the more obvious omissions (Megadeth, Accept etc...) were high 70 scores and so just missed the HM cutoff.
Events of note during 1986 ..................first album by Van Hagar and sadly the deaths of Phil Lynott and Cliff Burton. Metal Hammer makes its debut on newsstands.
Fire away...........as before I will take a break for a week or two before looking into 1987 which I imagine will be a similar sized operation.